Specialty Food Market Coming To Glenville Section Of Greenwich

GREENWICH, CT — Geoff Lazlo and Greg Oshins, both Greenwich natives, first met at Brunswick School in the second grade in 1986, and the two have remained friends over the years, even as careers have taken them around the country.

Lazlo became a chef and caterer, and worked in California for a time before moving back east, and Oshins has been involved in commercial real estate on the investment and leasing sides, with tenants located nationally and locally.

With a shared passion for food, Lazlo and Oshins have collaborated informally for years, but there was never a good overlap where they both could really work together on a project. Until now.

The Country Table, a specialty prepared foods market, will open up at 1 Glenville St. in the Glenville section of Greenwich next month. No specific date has been announced yet.

Located a stone's throw away from the Merritt Parkway and Rye Brook, N.Y., The Country Table will offer a handmade selection of gourmet sandwiches and made-to-order salads, family-friendly prepared entrees, premium coffee, house-made baked goods and scoop-able ice cream.

The business will also house Lazlo's catering business, Geoff Lazlo Food.

"We look at this as a culmination of our 36 years of friendship and ideas coming together. It makes us on a very personal level very, very proud," Oshins said.

All the ingredients will be sourced from regional farms in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and offerings will change depending on the season, although a core of about 12 curated sandwiches — or "unique takes on classics" as Lazlo describes them — will be staple items.

The Cuban pork sandwich, for example, will feature classic elements like the french baguette, spicy mustard and pickles, but will be elevated with housemade porchetta that has been seasoned, cured, stuffed, rolled and sliced thin.

In the fall and winter, there will be butternut squash soup. But in the summer, customers can expect refreshing cucumber or tomato gazpacho.

A prepared item like roasted chicken will be on the menu year-round, but the vegetables it's paired with will change with the seasons.

The farm-to-table mentality was ingrained in Lazlo as he began his journey towards becoming a chef about two decades ago.

Lazlo started cooking for himself at home after being inspired by so many great restaurants in San Francisco, where he was going to college in the mid-to-late 1990s. He eventually got a job in catering, but said a career in the food industry was never the plan.

After the dot-com bubble burst, he returned home to Greenwich and worked for Fjord Fisheries before attending the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

The defining moment in his career came when Lazlo served his externship in California with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Waters is known as the Godmother of the farm-to-table movement, as her menus change and she uses whatever is seasonally growing in Northern California at her restaurant.

"It was an eye-opener for me," Lazlo said.

"It's this whole idea that a farmer is growing this food and we need them to do that, so we need to support them as well. So if a farmer has a bumper crop, we buy extra and we figure out what to do with them," he added, mentioning a variety of dishes that can be made using apples. "It really forces you to challenge yourself as a chef and to really create and think outside of the box. Ultimately, you get a very exciting cuisine because of that. You're not just repeating the same thing over and over again. Every year there's a new challenge, and that's an exciting part."

Lazlo moved back east, and worked with the likes of Dan Barber at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in the Hudson Valley, and alongside Michael Anthony at Danny Meyer’s flagship Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan. Lazlo then served as Executive Chef of le Farm and The Whelk in Westport prior to opening his own farm-to-table restaurant, Mill Street Bar & Table, in Greenwich in 2015.

Lazlo left Mill Street in 2018, looking for a new venture. He began a catering company, Geoff Lazlo Food.

"The status quo in catering from what I had seen, was that there was 'Menu A, Menu B, Menu C,’" Lazlo said, adding that he customizes every menu to make each meal unique and special for his clients.

"As I was pursuing this new venture, Greg and I really started talking about a partnership," Lazlo said. They began looking for a retail space for a brick and mortar business in 2018.

"When we came upon this location [at 1 Glenville St.], we knew it was going to be a great spot to cater to a number of communities. There's just such a need for good food here," Oshins explained.

The entire space is about 2,000 square feet, which includes a commercial kitchen. The retail portion is about 1,000 square feet, and will feature a long L-shaped counter with a case for prepared foods. There will be a coffee station, and made-to-order salad and sandwich stations.

The building was formerly occupied by Watson’s Catering, and was once Glenville Video.

Grab-and-go cases will be available for the busy commuter who's looking for a prepared sandwich, coffee or yogurt parfait.

For those looking to dine-in and perhaps meet with a friend for coffee and a made-to-order sandwich, the dining area can seat 12.

"Our food and our design is clean but rustic," explained Oshins. "Our food takes inspiration from all the farm elements that Geoff mentioned: organic, seasonal, locally sourced. We want to still give it a sort of accessible, easy, clean feel. That's what our space does as well." Construction on the space began in September.

Lazlo and Oshins expressed pride in the fact that they've been able to come together to create this business for the community.

"We're a part of the community, we live in the community, we grew up in the community. We want this to be a place where people can come and be together," Oshins said.

The two also plan on having a fun and informal educational component, so people can learn about food, farming and what goes into preparing delicious offerings.

When asked what he loves the most about being a chef and being in the food industry, Lazlo said he enjoys making people feel at-ease.

"My goal is for people to exhale when they come in because they feel so comfortable that they can relax and forget about the world, and have their face light up with a smile when they're engaged with their friends and family and they're enjoying our food," he said. "That's why I do what I do."

For more information on The Country Table, visit their website.